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The fight to protect Internet freedom is coming to California this month as the Senate Energy and Utilities Committee (April 17) and Senate Judiciary Committee (April 24) have scheduled hearings and votes on Senator Wiener’s S.B. 822, comprehensive legislation that would utilize the tools available to the state of California to promote net neutrality. As these critical dates approach the large ISPs have filed their opposition (see attached) and it is worth looking at what they say in the context of what they have been doing in D.C. and in the courts. It is also important to see what they are not saying to California Senators.

Parties that Decimated Federal Law are Decrying States Acting in Response

The ultimate resolution to protecting network neutrality across the country is going to include restoring the 2015 Open Internet Order’s protections. That can happen in three ways: the FCC loses in court, the FCC reverses course, or, most likely, Congress passes a new law. Each of these scenarios are very likely years in the making and, in a matter of weeks, the so-called “Restoring Internet Freedom Order” will take effect. That leaves a very long gap of time for companies like Comcast and AT&T to strike exclusive deals with dominant Internet companies like Facebook to begin prioritizing their services and ensure no future small Internet competitors can compete and replace them (it was not that long ago when Facebook supported AT&T’s antitrust violating merger with T-Mobile).

ISPs Oppose Net Neutrality Because They Want It to Be Legal for Them to Charge More for Access Under Paid Prioritization

What the FCC did in 2017 will likely go down as the worst Internet policy decision in history and that is because it was such a radical departure. Despite the fact that the ISP market is more concentrated than ever and that even the Trump Administration’s Department of Justice worries about ISPs exerting power to harm competition this FCC concluded that it was proper for it to absolve itself of responsibility. There is nothing normal about that decision when compared to the previous decades of FCCs that regularly promoted network neutrality and took action against ISPs that violate it. And after years of litigation and losing against ISPs under its efforts to promote network neutrality under Title I of the Communications Act, it is completely insincere to argue that returning ISPs to Title I status is going back to FCC regulation as intended.